Moonboy, a time traveller fears she has changed history, and other books

19 March 2025

In Moonboy by Anna Ciddor, Letty can travel back in time from the room in her present day house, to the same room in 1969, when it is occupied by a boy her age. Letty is able to relive the excitement of the Apollo 11 launch, but fears her jaunts through time might be changing history. Don’t mess with the space-time continuum now. Moonboy might be a kids’ book, but the plot is just my thing.

First Name, Second Name, by Steve MinOn, isn’t a time travel story, nor horror, as a dead man walks back through his family’s turbulent history to claim his identity. Just in time for the imminent Federal election: How Australian Democracy Works, edited by Australian journalist Amanda Dunn. Yes, we need our democracy more than ever, as the byline reminds us.

A troubled young woman takes her mother and grandmother to Peru on a trek to Machu Picchu, thinking the walk will do them all good. But is it a good idea? Or will the amalgam of family secrets that come to light scuttle her plan? That’s Best, First and Last, by Amy Matthews.

Gusty Girls explores the life of late Australian poet Dorothy Porter, written by her younger sister, Josie McSkimming. Careless People, by former Facebook director of global public policy, Sarah Wynn-Williams, is the book Meta doesn’t want you to read. If that doesn’t scream buy me, what does?

The Sydney Writers’ Festival 2025 program has been published

19 March 2025

This year’s festival has events running from Sunday 18 May through to Wednesday 11 June 2025, though I understand the main event goes from Monday 19 May to Sunday 25 May. There’s too many highlights to list separately, but a few events caught my eye.

The evening of Monday 19 May sees the naming of the winners of the NSW Literary Awards, previously the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards — I can’t find an official announcement of the name change — so NSW Literary Awards it is.

Charlotte Wood, author of Stone Yard Devotional speaks on Tuesday 20 May. Toby Walsh, Chief Scientist of UNSW AI will discuss the six ideas you need to understand AI, on Thursday 22 May.

Friday 23 May is busy. Marcel Dirsus’ talks about the rise and fall of tyrants. Topical, or what. Helen Garner discusses her popular sports-themed memoir The Season. And Shankari Chandran, winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin Award, speaks about the power of literature in sorting fact from fiction in the face of authoritarianism.

Saturday 24 May is a big day. Robbie Arnott (Instagram link) talks about his latest novel Dusk. Michelle Brasier, Virginia Gay, and Chloe Elisabeth Wilson, discuss building writing communities. And the winners of Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist award, will speak to Melanie Kembrey.

Sunday 25 May is another big one. Charlotte Wood, and Irish author Colm Tóibín, also immediate past Laureate for Irish Fiction, discuss Irish literature versus Australian writing. In case you don’t know, Irish literature is smashing the ball out of the park. Annabel Crabb is joined by Jessie Tu (Instagram link), to talk about her latest novel, The Honeyeater.

On Sunday evening, Anna Funder will deliver the festival’s closing address. As I say, this is but a small sample of what’s happening, so check out the program for the full story.

RELATED CONTENT

Australian literature, events, Sydney

Can artificial intelligence and smartphones even co-exist?

17 March 2025

Manton Reece:

But what if Apple has discovered that it’s not actually possible? AI is entirely new, with new requirements that stress the limits of hardware. Apple is attempting to cram a clever intermingling of data and Siri features into 8 GB of RAM. As a comparison, the largest version of DeepSeek R1 can only be run on a brand new Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra and 512 GB of RAM.

512 GB of RAM? Well, Apple’s AI offering won’t have a hope of working on my old SE2 device, with its three GB of RAM then. Not that I think Apple Intelligence will be available on older handsets anyway.

For all the bad press Apple Intelligence has been copping in recent weeks though, some people are finding various of the currently available features useful, as Amanda Caswell writes at Tom’s Guide.

Does the universe reside within a black hole?

17 March 2025

Good morning, welcome to the new week, and mind-blown Monday. Today we’re discussing life, the universe, the rotation of galaxies, black holes, and everything.

Data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has concluded about two-thirds of galaxies in the universe rotate in one direction, while the remaining third rotate the opposite way. In a supposedly normal course of events, the balance would be more even. Apparently.

But there is any such thing as normal in the cosmos? You know what they say. Truth is stranger than fiction. The universe is not only stranger than we can imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. Two-thirds of galaxies might spin in one direction, because, you know, just because.

But there’s no just because in this universe. The imbalance in the rotational direction of the galaxies suggests to some astronomers that the universe was born inside a black hole. Since the black hole hosting our universe rotates in one direction, it follows that the majority of galaxies will spin in the same direction. Nikodem Poplawski, a theoretical physicist at the University of New Haven, describes this as the “simplest explanation” of the phenomenon:

“I think that the simplest explanation of the rotating universe is the universe was born in a rotating black hole. Spacetime torsion provides the most natural mechanism that avoids a singularity in a black hole and instead creates a new, closed universe,” Poplawski continued. “A preferred axis in our universe, inherited by the axis of rotation of its parent black hole, might have influenced the rotation dynamics of galaxies, creating the observed clockwise-counterclockwise asymmetry.”

I wonder how far up and down the “levels” of universes residing inside black holes goes then? If our universe is indeed located within a black hole, it follows that other universes must reside within the plentiful black holes that populate our universe. And inside those universes will be yet more black holes, that will be home to further universes. And so on.

But where does our black hole universe sit in such a hierarchy? Near the top? In the middle somewhere. Or near the bottom? If such a thing exists, as there may be no limit to how how far down the progression can go. The same applies going up the other way of course, in theory.

It’s mind blowing stuff for sure. If, that is, you accept this two-thirds versus one-thirds split of galaxy rotation represents a significant imbalance in the first place. There might still be room for just because here. After all, weird things just happen in this wondrous universe of ours.

RELATED CONTENT

astronomy, physics, science

No planet has two hundred and seventy plus moons, not even Saturn

15 March 2025

Saturn’s moon count leapt a few days ago, after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decided to classify an additional one-hundred-and-twenty-eight objects orbiting the ringed planet, as moons. It must be quite the feat of achievement for Saturn to boast it has the most number of satellites, by far, of any other planet in the solar system.

These new moons now mean Saturn is possessed of two-hundred-and-seventy-four satellites. But let’s be serious here. No planet has that many moons, real moons. All of Saturn’s new “moons” are just tiny rocks. They count as moons though, because they have a “proven orbit” around Saturn:

Most of the moons are irregular and tiny, just a few miles across. By comparison, our moon has a diameter of 2,159 miles (3,475 kilometers). But they do have proven orbits around Saturn, which is a key element of official moon candidacy.

Former planet Pluto has a proven orbit around the Sun, yet it is now considered a dwarf planet. This because it no longer meets the IAU’s definition of a planet. We can have different types of planets, it seems, but a moon is always a moon, even it is pet rock size.

But if planetary bodies need to fulfil a certain criteria to be deemed a (real) planet, then a tighter classification of what constitutes a moon, a real moon, is long overdue. If we use our moon, the Moon, as a benchmark, then perhaps Saturn has half a dozen or so “real” moons. The rest would be, as I wrote of Mars’ so-called moons in 2014, merely captured objects.

ETA: on the subject of Saturn, the planet’s fabulous rings will seem to disappear later this month, as far as observers on Earth are concerned. This is because the rings will be edge-on to us, a phenomenon called ring plane crossing, something that happens about every fifteen years.

The rings will become become visible again later in the year though. Who knows, without the rings to distract astronomers on Earth, maybe another batch of moons will be found orbiting Saturn.

RELATED CONTENT

astronomy, Saturn, science

Apple Intelligence, merely smoke and mirrors?

15 March 2025

John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball:

What Apple showed regarding the upcoming “personalized Siri” at WWDC was not a demo. It was a concept video. Concept videos are bullshit, and a sign of a company in disarray, if not crisis. The Apple that commissioned the futuristic “Knowledge Navigator” concept video in 1987 was the Apple that was on a course to near-bankruptcy a decade later. Modern Apple — the post-NeXT-reunification Apple of the last quarter century — does not publish concept videos. They only demonstrate actual working products and features.

This is heavy duty.

Apple’s AI offering, Apple Intelligence, isn’t even artificial, it is very much non-existent.

The Australian Book Design Awards 2025 longlist

13 March 2025

This is where we get the once-a-year chance to judge a book by its cover… the longlist for the 2025 Australian Book Design Awards (ABDA) was published last week (PDF).

Among numerous inclusions (this is the longlist after all) are covers for Tim Winton’s latest novel, Juice, designed by Adam Laszczuk, and Lucinda Froomes Price’s book All I Ever Wanted Was To Be Hot, designed by Katherine Zhang, of Sydney based Australian design house Evi-O.Studio.

The winners will be announced on Friday 23 May 2025.

RELATED CONTENT

Australian literature, books, design

Small Things Like These, a film by Tim Mielants, with Cillian Murphy, Emily Watson

13 March 2025

Small Things Like These, trailer, directed by Belgian filmmaker Tim Mielants, and starring Cillian Murphy, Emily Watson, looks like a drama/thriller not to be missed.

Based on the novel of the same name by Irish writer Claire Keegan, and set in 1985, Murphy portrays Bill Furlong, who works as a coal merchant and timber merchant, in the Irish town of New Ross.

After finding a young girl locked in shed while on a delivery job, he takes her a convent to be cared for. But it soon becomes apparent things are not what they seem to be at the convent. Bill goes on to not only uncover some disturbing secrets about the convent, but also his own past.

Small Things Like These opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 10 April 2025.

Farewell to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

12 March 2025

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC), a humorous literary award honouring terrible made up opening sentences to what will, presumably, be terrible novels, is no more. BLFC founder, Dr Scott Rice, who established the award in 1982, and had been running it with his daughter EJ Rice in recent years, has decided to retire:

Being a year and a half older than Joseph Biden, I find the BLFC becoming increasingly burdensome and would like to put myself out to pasture while I still have some vim and vigor!

The BLFC was a light-hearted addition to the literary award circuit, and I hazard to guess a few of the winning entries might well have inspired some not so terrible novel openers. A list of past winners has been archived here.

Are there alternatives to the misunderstood, confusing, Fediverse?

12 March 2025

Dave Winer:

The Fediverse is impossible to use even for people who understand what it’s trying to do, and most people have no idea. The answer: Stop trying to reinvent Twitter. It wasn’t a great idea! And figure out what really works in a decentralized system. It requires some serious brain work.

I’m supposed to understand the Fediverse — just another name for the web? — but sometimes feel the idea will go the way of the really simple RSS (just another way to follow a website). The concepts are easy for those in the know to comprehend, but seem to be utterly confusing for anyone else.

1 2 … 178 NEXT